


we get what we deserve

by agentx13 (rebelle_elle)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, Football, Funeral, Movie Tie-ins, On the Run, Sharon Carter Appreciation Day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 19:02:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 11,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7186214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelle_elle/pseuds/agentx13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles for Sharon Carter Appreciation Day</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you make the biting wind feel warm

_First prompt: Sharons awesome walk around the park while deep in her thoughts a.k.a Sharon walks on Steve being jumped by adorable kids in a playground._

 

The park is cold. It’s October, and the air bites, the wind stinging her skin through her scarf. Sharon’s veins hum, blood pumping with childhood memories of football and training for track.

The path ahead of her divides, one way heading to the playground, and the other to a jogging trail. Sharon pulls her phone from a pocket and checks her messages. She has two, one from Sam, the emoji of a black thumbs up, and another from the person she’s here to meet. see you soon

She pauses to send Sam a text. How long did it take him to send that?

The answer comes quickly. Twelve minutes. He tried an emoji first but didn’t want one that seemed “too forward."

Under her scarf, she smiles at her phone. She rarely gets to see them - it’s what happens when they’re all on the run. She keeps in touch primarily with burner phones. The relationship with Steve - or whatever it is - is the longest, strangest one she’s ever had.

Actually, whatever their relationship is, it’s filled with moments that most people would hate. Intel sent across the globe on both ends. Rushed moments where conversation is more focused on what they each need to know than their personal lives, where they try to say what they feel with their eyes and expressions because there isn’t time for anything more. They’ve only been able to spend a night together twice before, and both times, she’d woken up with her head against his shoulder and a crick in her neck. The pain had been worth it, but she wouldn’t mind being able to spend more time with him.

Even today, they’re mostly meeting for a drop. If Sam lets them know the coast is still clear afterward, they might grab a bite to eat. Maybe they’ll take a walk through the city and talk. She and Steve both like to stay active, and it would be nice to see the city and get to know each other better. She doesn’t even know what his favorite football team is.

If she finds out he’s a Patriots fan, their relationship is done.

Realizing she’s still staring at her phone like an idiot, she sends off a quick text to Sam. He’s such a dork.

She heads down the path to the playground, and she’s barely shoved her phone in her pocket when she hears Steve’s voice.

“You don’t want me to do that.”

His voice is low, faintly menacing, and she tenses as her adrenaline spikes. If he needs help... Her hand moves toward her gun.

“Just throw it, man!”

Sharon’s hand stills, and she moves quietly toward the voices, coming up behind Steve just as he throws a football over the kids’ heads. They screech and run for it.

“That’s not how you throw a football!” one of the kids shouts at him.

Sharon sees Steve’s shrug and can imagine his humble, unruffled smile. “Told you you don’t want me to throw it.”

He sounds utterly... content, and Sharon smiles to herself. He turns to head toward the playground and stops when he catches sight of her. Her smile widens; he smiles back.

“Tell me you’re not a Patriots fan.”

He looks confused for a moment, and part of her thinks that he looks adorable. “Something bad about being a Patriots fan?”

She rolls her eyes. “Guess not.” Or at least, he has enough good qualities that she can deal with him being a Patriots fan. It’s the same thing, right?


	2. success in failure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: on the run in disguise after CACW, canon div where she joins Avengers after TWS/AOU

Sharon isn’t nervous. She’s just a normal person on a team where no one is normal. She’s just like Romanoff and Barton! Except... not at all. Romanoff was trained from childhood to be a black widow and is working with the Avengers to atone for what she had been made to do. And Barton is some sort of carny with the best aim anyone at SHIELD had ever seen, the sort of guy who shoots an enemy without always looking for them, and _still_ make a perfect shot. So, yes, they are human, but they aren’t _normal._

She crouches in place and waits, listening in over the comms. She isn’t an insecure person by nature. Her personal belief has always been that if she isn’t good enough, then she will work until she is better than good enough. So no, she tells herself. She isn’t an Avenger, but neither were any of these people four years ago.

*

_"You can do things, go places, they can’t," Maria had told her a week ago. Maria had found her in a cafe in Istanbul. She was there partly to see the sights and partly to kick the ass of terrorist who was using cyberterrorism to hold hospitals hostage. “Which is why the Avengers have extended an invitation for you to join the team.”_

_Sharon had said the only thing she could think of. “Ha.”_

_Maria stared at her. “I wouldn’t joke about this.”_

_Sharon, already sober, forced herself to appear even more solemn._

_“People expect Romanoff to be in the field. They expect the Avengers. Weirdly enough, they don’t expect the Avengers to have a spy that no one knows about. That’s where you come in. You’ll be our ghost. Independent of the team to a large extent, undercover even when you’re working alongside them.”_

_Sharon frowned. “You make it sound like I don’t have a choice.”_

_Maria shrugged. “Would you really pass up the chance to work with the Avengers? Think about it, Carter. No one passes up the chance to work with the Avengers.”_

_“No one else spied on Steve Rogers without his knowledge.”_

_Maria shrugged, showing a hint of teeth. “Which is why we chose you. He’s a smart man._ Very _smart. That he didn’t suspect you says something."_

*

And now here she is, thanking whoever had thought to make her tac suit waterproof as she waits in the damp brush, listening to the sounds of a battle she can’t join.

Then she hears Steve’s voice on the comms, speaking a code phrase in case their signal is somehow hijacked. “Time to borrow some salt.”

She doesn’t wait, moving quickly, glad to use her legs and be of use herself.

“I think the phrase is ‘Time to borrow some sugar,'” Stark says, and she can hear the faint hum of his repulsors preparing to fire in the background.

She reaches the door and absently hits in the code. She’s been studying this place for over a week now, waiting until they Avengers could arrive and give her a distraction to sneak into the Hydra facility. She’d almost broken in on her own the night before, but Maria had insisted she wait. “Not as bitter as _he_ is,” she mutters to herself. She pushes the door open, going fast to catch anyone on the other side by surprise. The hall is empty, and she moves deeper inside, checking rooms and murmuring quietly to herself as she goes. “‘Neighbor.’ Jesus Christ. Like he’s never met a spy before.” She follows the map of the place she’s committed to memory, turns a corner at the end of the hall. She can hear shouting in the distance, but nothing nearby. “If he’d been this fucking salty seventy years ago, maybe his bitter ass wouldn’t have frozen.”

Barton snorts, and Sharon wishes he would focus more on the mission instead of joking around with Romanoff.

“Just in case someone missed it,” Stark says, amused, “everyone’s comm is on.”

She stops short in the hallway, her cheeks suddenly burning. Great first mission with the Avengers, Sharon. Just great. Talk about Steve Rogers’ salty ass on the open comms.

At least Barton hadn’t been laughing because he was messing around with Romanoff.

She clears her throat. “Knew that. I’ll let you know when I have the... salt.”

“I’ve got the salt out here,” Stark tells her. “Wrapped up in a red, white, and blue package.”

Steve’s voice is gruff. “Tony. Focus.”

The mission is a success. Sure, her cheeks are still burning when she hands the drive over to Stark so he can take it on the Quinjet back to the States, but the mission is still a success. She picks up her meager belongings from the hotel and heads back on a commercial flight, the plane much, much slower than the Avengers’, and thus allowing her more time to kick herself.

She doesn’t expect Steve to meet her in the lobby of Avengers Tower when she arrives. “Captain.”

He ducks his head in acknowledgement. “Neighbor.” He turns with her toward the elevators. “I liked you. That’s why I asked you out. That’s why I’m... salty.”

She leans against the elevator wall and watches him as he punches the number for Maria’s floor. “I liked you, too. That’s why I turned you down.” She crosses her arms. “Luckily, I’m more of a salt person than a sugar one anyway.”

The upper half of his body turns to look at her, and she keeps her face as neutral as she can. Because Jesus Christ. She just became an Avenger a week ago. She’s a professional, goddamn it. She needs to stop... whatever it is they’re doing.

“Can we- can we start over?” he asks.

She shrugs. “So long as we keep things professional.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Sharon. Nice to meet you... Steve, was it?”

He grins like a dork, the kind of grin that would make her melt if she let her guard down, and he gives her hand a soft shake. “Yeah, Steve. I’m an Avenger.”

The elevator stops, and the doors slide open. She steps out. “That’s funny. I think I am, too."


	3. breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: Her first martial-arts/boxing/shooting tournament as a child/teen; how hard she trained, show nervous she was, how supportive her family was.

Her hands shook. She took a deep breath and held it like Aunt Peggy had taught her to. Or was that for hiccups? Oh, nuts. Don’t let her get hiccups. Not now.

She sat on the floor, her legs crossed, waiting until she was called. She had asked them to call her Sharon. Just Sharon. She wasn’t going to respond to her last name, and if they used it, she wasn’t competing. They thought she was being cute, but even at eight years old, Sharon meant it. As soon as Mr. Fury had told Aunt Peggy that he was sure no niece of hers would slouch at karate, Sharon had decided not to do anything that might make Aunt Peggy look bad or think her niece was a slouch.

And she _wasn’t_ a slouch. If Mr. Fury were here, she’d probably try and kick him in the shins for implying she was one. Maybe. Maybe not, though, because Sharon’s parents were in the crowd somewhere, being weird around Aunt Peggy. If Sharon didn’t know better, she’d say her parents didn’t like Aunt Peggy.

Which was stupid. How could anyone not like Aunt Peggy? She was the coolest aunt ever. People did whatever she told them to do, and she’d shot people, and Mr. Dugan said she once killed a man with her bare hands. Keeping the world safe was one thing, but killing a man with her bare hands? Nobody messed with anybody who could do that. If Sharon could do that, then all the kids in her class would leave her the heck alone. The stupid butts.

She took a deep breath. There they were. Her parents sat in the stands, leaning toward each other, their eyes held fast on the current competition. Peggy sat several inches away, her back ramrod straight and yet somehow still relaxed. Mr. Fury sat beside her, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching the competition like he was indulging the competitors, like his attention was some sort of compliment.

Maybe she should kick him.

She should at least yell at him. He might try to shut her up with ice cream again. Sharon had figured out pretty quickly that Mr. Fury liked kids but didn’t really know what to do with them when they were around. If she teared up after yelling, she might even be able to get a piggyback ride if she played her cards right.

Her name was called. Only her first name. Good. She stood and took her place, her heart thumping louder and harder than it ever had before. The directions were a hum, the punches and kicks a rote fog in her mind. She had only just stood up when it felt like they were telling her she could sit down again, and she looked around in a panic before realizing that the judges were already making notes. She swallowed thickly and moved back to her seat.

It was only at the end of the competition that she found she had gotten one of the highest scores in her group and had been promoted to the next level. She’d even gotten a medal, and her parents clapped almost as loudly as Aunt Peggy and Mr. Fury.

“Keep this up, you’ll be a black belt by the time you’re ten,” her father told her as he scooped her up and set her on his shoulders.

She cupped the medal in her hands and briefly set it in the middle of his bald spot. “By the time I’m nine, Daddy. Then there are a bunch more belts to get. Black belts just mean you know the basic stuff.”

“Nine, then, sweetheart.” He stopped as Aunt Peggy and Mr. Fury approached, and Mr. Fury, taller than her aunt by at least a foot, clapped her on her knee.

“Not half bad, half-pint.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

Aunt Peggy smiled up at her. “Very impressive, Sharon. I’m very proud of you.”

Sharon’s entire chest suddenly felt warm. Aunt Peggy saying that was better than any stupid medal. “Does that mean ice cream?” she asked hopefully.

* * *

Ten years later, Sharon had grown accustomed to the nerves. The key was to breathe. Especially when it came to sharpshooting, her drill instructor had preached. Really, Sharon felt she had outgrown her instructor years ago. It was always the same information, over and over again. Breathe, breathe, breathe. She’d taken to studying wind patterns and the math needed to sharpshoot on her own. The equations were easy enough; doing them in her head on the spur of the moment was the hard part. But she’d been practicing on her own. Getting better.

As luck would have it, the competition took place on a windy day. She didn’t think any of the others had trained for this. But then, none of the others had grown up with Aunt Peggy or the Commandos or SHIELD agents. She knew a couple of the people in her group wanted to go into SHIELD or the Army. Too many were just there to brag about what good shots they were. One of them had dreams of qualifying for the Olympics.

He wouldn’t make it. He couldn’t hit the center of the target whenever conditions were less than ideal.

_Over-confidence is deadly,_ she reminded herself. Aunt Peggy, Fury and Dugan had lived by that, hammering it into her head from the time she started to succeed. Sharon still remembered the sting of a lost kickboxing match in her teen years. She’d gotten cocky, and Aunt Peggy and just sighed before retreating to the stands. It was Fury who had grinned at her. That was the day Sharon had found some lessons stuck best when learned the hard way.

One of the coaches came over to remind them of the rules and then run down the competition process. Sharon listened carefully even though she knew it by heart already. This wasn’t her first competition.

Her turn came, and her world narrowed into a target in the distance. So far, only one person had managed to clip their target. Sharon had to beat them.

Breathe.

Look at the movement of the trees, the fluorescent ribbons left from past competitions. Calculate.

Breathe.

Still the body, still the mind. Relax. Listen to the heartbeat.

Breathe.

Double-check measurements.

Exhale.

Squeeze the trigger.

In the distance, the center of the target burst. They hung another. She breathed, did the math, breathed, double-checked, exhaled, squeezed the trigger, and watched the target’s center burst. The third time, she reminded herself not to get cocky.

As she accepted the gold medal, though, it was hard not to rub the award in the guys’ faces as they put on brave faces for the audience but glared at her when they thought they could get away with it.

She was only half surprised when the crowd dispersed and she found Fury standing beside her, his hand falling from scratching his eyepatch. The wound was recent enough he hadn’t yet broken the habit.

“That’ll look good on your SHIELD application if you still mean to join,” he told her.

“I still mean to join.” She swung her rifle over her shoulder, feeling momentarily like the Commandos returning from battle victorious. “Thinking about joining the Army to prove I can shoot in active battle situations.”

“Director told me you were thinking about going to college before the Academy.”

Sharon shrugged. “She wants me to. I think she’s trying to smoothe things over with my parents.” Bad enough that Sharon intended to go into SHIELD at all, but her father had told her that he and her mom felt she preferred Aunt Peggy to them. Sharon hadn’t denied it, and that had only made things worse. Sharon wasn’t sure if her father had yelled at her or Aunt Peggy more.

“Best SHIELD agents I’ve got are the smart ones with cool heads.” He looked around. There weren’t many people left around. “And college would be good for you. Need to live a little, Sharon.”

She rolled her eyes, and then an idea occurred to her. “If you mean that,” she said slowly, her tone wheedling, “then I _guess_ I can let you pay for ice cream. You know. To celebrate.”

He eyed the medal. After a moment, he rolled his eye. “Fine. Might as well talk about your future while we’re there.”

Sharon couldn’t suppress her smile. Her future was what she was all about.


	4. the best of us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: sharon dealing with peggy's death, cute sharon and tony as cousins or he being ehr godfather?

Sharon leaned against the wall and took a long, slow breath. She could do this. She could. She just... needed a minute. She closed her eyes and ran over the speech again, her damp fingers clutching the folded piece of paper in her hand. She had never trained for public speaking. And certainly never like this.

“I could do it.”

Her arm twitched as she reached for her gun, and it took a second for her to recognize the voice. She opened her eyes and found Tony Stark standing nearby, his hands tucked into the pockets of his suit, his red sneakers in harsh contrast to the black suit.

He didn’t react to the way she’d reached to her gun. Instead, he nodded to the paper in her hand. “I could read it. If you want me to.” He paused, but his mind moved too quickly for any of his pauses to last long. “I won’t end up calling myself her niece, will I? Not that I mind, but some people might be surprised.”

Sharon huffed a breath. It was as close to a laugh as she’d gotten in days. She straightened and raised her chin. This was the first time she would ever publicly honor Peggy the way Peggy deserved. Less-than-perfect posture wouldn’t do. “I’ve got it.” She studied him as organ music echoed through the hall. She had been too young to remember much about when his parents died, but she knew that he understood death all too well. She swallowed. “Thanks for coming, Tony. She would have appreciated it.”

He looked over her shoulder, and she glanced back as well. They were still alone, though, for however brief a time it would be. “It’s not official. Better that way. Half the people here are still pissed I stopped making weapons, and I hate having them try to wheedle me into it. They don’t know how to bribe someone who knows everything.” He barely closed his mouth before a thought occurred to him. “Or should I say ‘pissed off’ on this side of the pond?”

She shrugged. “Does it matter?”

Tony wagged a finger at her. “Defeatism doesn’t suit you.” 

The sound of laughter joined the organ music, and Sharon suddenly felt as if someone had punched her in the gut. She’d known this day was coming. She’d helped plan it. She was glad Peggy wasn’t suffering anymore, that no one had to say, “No, Mom. Don’t you remember me?” anymore. But she still hadn’t accepted that she could move on now. She hadn’t realized that Peggy didn’t matter as much to everyone else as she did to Sharon. Peggy should have mattered to them all as much as she did to Sharon. She really should have. There was a reason none of Peggy’s children or grandchildren had wanted to speak, a reason why Sharon had volunteered to do it instead of someone who hadn’t cared like they were supposed to.

Tony moved to stand beside her and propped his sneaker against the wall.

“It’s weird, isn’t it,” she murmured softly. “How we seem closer to her than her own kids?” She shook her head. “I mean, I get it. She wanted to protect them from what she does- did. And.” She swallowed again. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to find a slightly-crumpled tissue in front of her face, and she took it with a watery smile.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see them around as much as I saw you.” He shrugged. “I’d bet we were closer to her than our own parents.”

Sharon rolled her eyes and passed the tissue back. “Oh, come on. You’re a total mama’s boy.”

He made a face. “Which you would understand if you knew my dad.”

“I _did_ know your dad. Kind of. I remember how whenever he saw a kid, he’d pawn them off on someone else.”

Tony nodded but didn’t speak, and she studied his profile.

“He wasn’t good with kids,” she said, her voice quiet. “Any kids.”

He cleared his throat. “Uh. Speaking of old people I don’t always like, _he’s_ here.”

She frowned. There was only one person he could mean, one person he would warn her about. And she hadn’t heard Tony talk about him that way in over a year. “You two having trouble?”

She could guess what it was about, too. Her new job with the Joint Counter Terrorism Centre meant she knew about the Accords.

Her new job meant she was supposed to enforce them.

Tony heaved a sigh. Pulling out his latest Stark phone, he pulled up a picture of a young, black man in his early twenties. “This is Charlie Spencer.”

She reached out and covered his hand with hers. She knew that voice. She’d grown up hearing him use it all too often. “Tony. You don’t have to try to sell me anything.”

He looked down at her hand. After a moment, he turned off the phone. His shoulders sagged. “He died in Sokovia. We killed him.”

She pulled his tissue from where it poked out of his pocket and dangled it in front of his face. With a faint eyeroll, he tugged it away. “Did you mean to kill him?”

“I created Ultron, Sharon. It doesn’t matter what I meant.” He clenched the tissue in his hand.

She studied him for a moment, then leaned against the wall. “You’re a good man, Tony. You fuck up, sure. A lot. Everyone does. But you always try to help people. Even when it means putting them before yourself. That’s something not everyone does. But you do. Because you’re a good man.”

Tony grunted. “All that SHIELD training, and you’re still not good at comforting people.”

“Hey, SHIELD was a government agency. That course got cut long before I graduated from the Academy. Something about budgetary shortfalls.”

He nodded, but she didn’t think he was listening to her. They stood mutely, listening as the organ played a different song and the sound of the crowd got louder. “I’m signing the Accords. The Avengers are the one good thing I’ve got. The one good thing I did. I’m not watching them get destroyed by bureaucracy.”

She didn’t have the heart to tell him that the Avengers would be destroyed either way. There was no way they could be effective when controlled by the UN, no way to do their duty. The Accords were a catch-22. Damned if they did, damned if they didn’t. The only thing signing the Accords would do was insure him company.

His eyes flicked toward her. “You think she’d- not _approve._ But agree?”

His mind always worked faster when not factoring in emotion, she thought wryly. Tony could master anything mechanical overnight, but he couldn’t find a way to talk about his emotions with a flashlight and a paid panel of therapists.

She glanced down at her hands, at the paper that held the speech that could potentially end her career. “When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move,” she intoned, “your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world, ‘No, you move.’” She held up the speech. “Peggy said that.” She hesitated. “Do you think you’re right?”

“I’m not going to let someone else’s blood be on my hands,” Tony said, his voice hard. “Ever. Not if I have anything to do with it.”

Sharon spotted the rector appear at the end of the hall and straightened again, turning to Tony as she set herself to rights as much as she could. “Then I say do what you think is right and stand by it. I don’t see how she could fault you for that.” She looked at him. “Do I look all right?”

“If you’re asking if Steve Rogers is going to look at you twice-”

“Jesus Christ, Tony.”

He mock-gasped. “In a _church._ Why, Sharon Carter.” Seeing her expression, he managed a weak grin. “You look good,” he confirmed.

She nodded and hurried to catch up to the rector.

“Remind me to get you a list of safe houses for when your career bottoms out,” he called after her. So he, too, had realized what delivering the eulogy in front of this crowd would mean.

Behind her back, where the rector couldn’t see, she gave Tony a obscene hand gesture. At his snort, she looked over his shoulder. “Hey. She’s worth it, right?”

He shrugged. “If you think it’s the right thing to do, and you stand by it, how can the best of us fault you for that?”

She looked at him until the rector cleared his throat, and then she walked around the corner. She was about to reveal her true name and more personal details about herself than she had divulged to any stranger in years, and she was revealing it all to a room full of spies and diplomats who may or may not use that information to their own ends. Revenge on a woman who was no longer alive, a symbol for an organization that only barely existed... But it didn’t matter, so long as they targeted Sharon and not Peggy’s children.

And Peggy deserved to have her children be shielded from her world. Her and Sharon’s world.

And Peggy deserved to be memorialized by someone who knew her and loved her, who didn’t see her just as a SHIELD Director but as a human being.

And if Sharon blew her cover for undercover assignments after this? Well. She’d deal with it.

Compromise where she could, and where she couldn’t? She’d make _them_ move.

She closed her eyes, took a deep, slow breath, and walked through the doors into the cathedral.


	5. if that was you flirting...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> via femmefatalty: canon divergence: sharon is in the first avengers movie.

“So how does it feel to be a week old?”

Steve turned and found a blonde woman a little shorter than he, her brown eyes dancing as she stepped nearer and offered her hand. He took it automatically, giving it a careful shake. The world was still new to him, and he wasn’t sure of most of the people around him. Even his surroundings seemed strange. “Pretty good,” he lied. “I’m taller than the average one-week-old, so I’ve got that going for me.” That much was true, at least.

The redhead on the other side of the room raised her eyebrows.

The blonde woman grinned. “I’m Sharon. Fury asked if I could show you some places in town. Figured it might help more if someone who doesn’t trip over themselves to meet you did it.”

He blinked at her. “Oh.” Because he was Captain America. Right. He still wasn’t accustomed to being treated that way. The propaganda films had been one thing, but in the field with the Commandos, he’d just been Steve or - to Phillips - Rogers. The Captain America title was almost a joke.

She was still standing there, waiting for a reply, and he roused himself.

“I prefer to explore on my own,” he said awkwardly. God, would he ever learn to feel comfortable around women? Well, not this one, probably. He didn’t want people showing him around because Fury had told them to.

She nodded, undeterred. “That’s fine. I prefer to do the same, so I came prepared for that.” She handed him a notebook from under her arm. “Okay. I know that seems weird, but keep in mind I work for SHIELD. I’m nothing if not... I’d say ‘thorough,’ but ‘anal’ is accurate, too.” She cut herself off, and Steve glanced at her for a moment before opening the notebook.

Holy crap. It _was_ thorough. Colored tabs with everything from restaurants to grocery stores to clothing shops. There was even one section on movies to check out.

She cleared her throat. “I figured you could learn from my mistakes. The burger place on 8th? Do _not_ go there. You’ll regret it. I don’t care how much super soldier serum you have, how many beatings you took, how many times you threw up after a gut punch. That place will make you regret things you never knew existed.”

He found the page under the restaurant tab and held it up. “You gave it a negative eleven-hundred. Is that the lowest score possible?”

“Nope. That prize goes to Old Yeller, under the movie tab.”

He flipped over, found it under O, and saw the notation calling for a box of tissues. His eyebrows shot up. What the hell was so bad about Old Yell- Oh. A dog in it and a lot of tissues. He made a face. “Maybe I’ll build up to that one.”

“You like coffee?”

He stared at her. “I... had coffee-like substances during the war. Not sure how coffee today measures up.”

“I’m just asking because there’s a coffee place near Stark Tower that’s pretty good. It can be kind of crowded, but the coffee’s pretty good, and so is the service. People don’t really bother you there.”

He nodded in understanding and closed the notebook. “Thanks. I’m Steve, by the way.”

She grinned.

He took a breath. “Right. You knew that already.”

“Might have figured it out,” she admitted. “If you have any questions, my number’s in the notebook. Maria Hill, who works for Fury, is another good person to talk to. You can rely on her.” Sharon held her hands in front of her. “I’ve got to get to work, but if you want any help with anything, let me know.” She looked over to the redhead. “You coming or not?” At the redhead’s sigh, Sharon nodded and turned to Steve. “Nice to meet you, Steve. Welcome to the 21st century.”

“Thanks.” He watched her walk off, only to find the redhead at his elbow.

“If that was you flirting,” she mused wryly, “you need help, Rogers.”

And then they were both gone, leaving Steve alone with a notebook and a couple names. He studied the cover of the notebook. It wouldn’t hurt to start familiarizing himself with this new century. He could at least see what the coffee here was like.


	6. Excerpts from future projects!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know I know I know. HOW AWFUL TO JUST POST EXCERPTS! But... I've been really busy and haven't actually written a full fic in a month, so I wanted to post previews for some SCAM pieces.
> 
> Feel free to critique, to opine, to suggest.
> 
> Thanks for reading (if you care to read any of it) and sorry I didn't have more prepared this time around!

** I Pledged Allegiance **   
_Sharon/Steve/Bucky_

Brandt managed to recover, but it wasn’t enough to win the election. It wasn’t even close. Bucky was transferred back to the Capitol. In January, he was assigned to help at the Inauguration, too. Most of it served only to make him wish the inauguration ceremonies were shorter. The weather was biting cold and overcast, as January all too often was in DC. President Rogers and First Lady Carter led the parade to the West Front, and he shifted his weight a little as he observed the crowd. He could only imagine how the President and First Lady were faring; he hadn’t seen either one of them stop smiling on their way up the street as they waved to the crowd, and neither of them wore gloves or caps. They must be freezing.

There was no sign of trouble while President Rogers swore the oath on his family’s bible.

The Inaugural Ball was equally uneventful, and Bucky watched as President Rogers and First Lady Carter danced around the room, smiling each other, greeted people and smiled at them and each other, and then covered each other when they wanted to sneak a bite of food, one blocking the other from well-wishers and cameras while the other ate.

He forced himself not to watch them, to check for threats in the vicinity instead.

* * *

**All the Time in the World** (Rated E, title subject to change)  
 _Sharon/Steve/Natasha_

He comes out of the ice broken. He doesn’t realize it at first; no one else does, either. But he punches the bag with more anger, hard enough to go through a man’s face, and people start to say he’s just adjusting. They let him rage, they let him revel in it, they give him sympathetic glances and let him, let him, let him. Take your time, they say, the world will need you again, but not right now. Take your time.

And then, within two weeks, the world needs him, and there’s a relief in being able to hit something without caring if it’s human, without caring if it dies. He’s always known that violence against others is allowed with the others don’t look the same as everyone else. He meets others who are both like him and not like him, people who belong and yet don’t, and he thinks that his rage is nothing to the Hulk’s. But that’s the secret, isn’t it. Banner is always angry, and so is he.

He goes through the motions. He knows how to be good, to be too good to be true, and he plays the part because he doesn’t know what else to do. He has never known rage like this, never known this anger or helplessness, never wanted to make something else hurt so much. No, some _one_ else. He wants to hide the darkness in him until he can figure out what happened, figure out what he is now, figure out how to be what he was, but always, that hatred, that anger, sits in the pit of his stomach and eats away at him, threatens to overwhelm him.

...

His neighbor is a liar. He knows because he’s a liar, too. People tease him about it, say he isn’t a good liar, but that’s because there are very few lies that he cares to protect.

But he can’t figure out why she lies.

And then, the fourth time Natasha encourages him to ask out the nurse across the hall, it clicks. She knows the nurse, and there are only so many ways she can know the nurse.

The nurse, Kate, is with SHIELD. She may not even be a nurse; that might just be a cover designed to make him like her.

* * *

** The Way Ghosts Wait **   
_Sharon/Bucky_

The first time she sees him after the exchange in Germany, it’s after a shoot-out with Hydra. He pulls her out of her flipped-over car and lifts her to her feet. She’d only been able to see his boots at first, and when she sees him, she’s glad she hadn’t tried to shoot him.

She leans against the car and studies him while she gets her breath back. “You’re not going to try and kill me this time, are you?”

There’s only a brief hint of pain in his eyes, and then he says, “That depends on how good your Russian is, I guess.”

She nods and looks up and down the road. With the Hydra agents dead, they might be the only two people around for miles. “My Russian’s shit.”

“Good.” He drops to the ground and pulls her duffel from the back seat. He sets it beside her feet and steps away.

“Good,” she echoes. One of the Hydra agents is pinned to the tree by a motorcycle; it’s her handiwork. The other is scuffed up, still bleeding from a head wound, but she can see the bullet hole between the eyes. His work. “You do team ups?”

“No.”

She nods. She hadn’t expected him to say yes. After a moment, she turns back to her car to see if there’s anything she can salvage. She has the awful suspicion she’ll have to walk back to town.

“Don’t tell Steve you saw me.”

By the time she turns back to him, he’s gone.

* * *

**The Proposal**  
 _Sharon/Natasha_  
“What’s the problem?” Natasha demanded, looking at her at long last. “Like you were saving yourself for someone special?”

Sharon could think of five people in the office she’d rather date, three of whom she’d already slept with. “I like to think so.” Probably the wrong time to think about how she was wearing Bobbi’s bra. “Besides, it’s illegal.”

“They’re looking for terrorists,” Natasha said impatiently, looking away again. “not for book publishers.”

They were discussing a surprise marriage with someone Sharon loathed and had never consented to marry. No _way_ was Sharon going to talk about this and _not_ have Natasha just as involved in this conversation as she was. “Natasha.”

Natasha took a breath and folded her hands on her desk. “Yes?”

“I’m not going to marry you.” She had done a lot for Natasha; she couldn’t even remember what it was like to have dignity. But she wasn’t going to do _this._

“Sure you are.” Sharon opened her mouth to argue, but Natasha didn’t pause for breath. “Because if you don’t, your dreams of touching the lives of millions with the written word are dead. Obadiah is going to fire you the second I’m gone. Guaranteed. That means you’re out on the street, looking for a job. That means that the time that we spent together, the lattes, the cancelled dates, the midnight Tampax runs, were all for nothing, and all your dreams of being an editor are gone.”

Sharon suddenly wanted nothing more than to go home, put Tony on speakerphone, and spend the rest of her night crying over romcoms and eating raw cookie dough. Natasha was right. If Natasha left, and Obadiah was put in charge, Sharon was going to get fired, and then what? Natasha was right. All of her dreams of being an editor would be over.

“Don’t worry,” Natasha said briskly. “After the required allotment of time, we’ll get a divorce, and you’ll be done with me.” The phone rang, but it barely registered in Sharon’s consciousness. Were they really going to do this? “Until then,” Natasha continued, “like it or not, your wagon is hitched to mine.” She flashed Sharon a tight, thin smile. “Okay?” She pointed toward Sharon’s desk. “Phone.”

And just like that, the conversation was over.

For now.

* * *

**As-yet-untitled Staron fic**   
_Sharon/Steve_

He survives Valentine’s Day. It’s especially impressive given how many people were shooting at him; Rollins had caught a bullet, and when Steve walks home on February 15, he stares at the red and pink hearts in the windows as he passes by. The sense of war abroad and peace at home shouldn’t surprise him anymore, and yet there’s always a weird discombobulation about it.

There’s a stack of candy, clearance stickers still attached, outside his door with a note. “Happy Feb 15, the only candy-related holiday in Feb that matters.”

He looks across the hall, with the closed door and its brass 3, then picks up the candy and takes it inside.

After the day before, it still feels weird to sit around his apartment, writing up his report and eating Valentine’s Day candy, but he still feels better by the end of it.

Despite the clearance stickers that are clearly meant to say “Don’t read into this. This is just a nice thing I thought to do. There’s nothing romantic here.”

But at the end of the day, he survives February 15, too.


	7. Teachers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> goyaveh asked for a teachers au months ago, so here we go - I hope it's sweet enough for you! ;p

Steve leaned backward as he watched her walk past the door, not realizing he was doing it until Daisy, one of his students, hesitantly raised her hand and asked, “Uh, Mr. Rogers?”

Almost falling over, he hastily corrected himself and looked at her expectantly. “Yes, Daisy?”

“I don’t think I’m doing this shading right.” She glanced toward the door as if wondering what he’d seen, and he hastily moved in front of her to focus her attention on him. He bent over to survey her work so far and dove into explaining ways she could improve the work, assuring her that it wasn’t bad as it was, but if she wanted to try adding blues or even greens to the shaded areas...

* * *

The flowers lay in a desk drawer. He checked them three times during his next class.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Rogers?” Brock asked. “Forget your neighborhood?”

“Ha, ha,” Steve rejoined. “How about finishing your project before we have unrelated conversations in class, Brock?”

Brock hastily drew a stick figure and held it up for Steve’s inspection.

Steve sighed. Smartass. “Keep trying, Mr. Rumlow.”

* * *

She was in her classroom during break, and he almost went in, hands sweaty and heart pounding, but then it occurred to him that he didn’t want the students seeing and whispering to each other, so he stayed where he was.

* * *

He kept from checking the flowers only once during the next class. Was it his imagination, or were they wilting?

* * *

Lunch. He heard her walk past his classroom, talking with Bobbi about a football game and the possibility of going hiking with Melinda that weekend. He left his classroom only when he was certain he wouldn’t be spotted. He already felt clammy. He was probably mad to do this.

But he had to do this. Otherwise, the flowers would start to rot in his desk. Or in his trash can. And he would always wonder about what could have happened.

* * *

He kept the drawer open through nearly the entirety of his free period. It wasn’t his imagination. The flowers were definitely wilting. He tried to think of what he could do, but he didn’t dare put them in water on his desk. The teasing would be relentless. And what would happen if they found out he’d been rejected? Steve thought kids had been assholes when _he_ was young, but modern-day high school student were the _worst._

He thought he heard someone walk down the hall and hastily slammed the drawer shut.

* * *

He taught during her free period, and then school was out. Mercifully done. Hundreds of students going home. He meandered down the hall under the pretense of getting water from the water fountain to see if she was in her room. She was, along with what looked like twelve students. Damn it, he’d forgotten she was overseeing detention this week.

* * *

Over an hour later, he finally heard her heels clacking down the hall as she made her way. He tried to clear his throat, but he did it wrong and started coughing. His eyes watered, and when he wiped them away it was to find her standing in the doorway, looking at him with concern.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I-” His voice broke, and he coughed again before nodding.

Seeing that his death wasn’t imminent, she smiled. “You know the students have already gone home, right? We’re free to leave, too.” She nodded down the hall. “Want to walk together?”

_Yes,_ he almost said, and even in his mind, his voice was far too enthusiastic. “I was actually working on something,” he managed to get out.

“Oh. Okay.” Her eyes fell for a moment, and he wondered if she was disappointed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe?”

“Sharon?” He jumped to his feet, hitting his knee against the bottom of the desk. He doubled over in pain, hissing out a curse.

“Holy shit!” she proclaimed, running over. “Are you okay?”

Jesus, she probably thought he was the worst. “I, uh. Yeah. I- I just...” At a loss for words, figuring it was now or never, he pulled open the door and whipped the roses out, holding them up for her inspection. He nearly hit her in the nose and hastily lowered them again. “I was working on you. On _these._ For you.”

Oh, God. The flowers were impossibly wilted; some of the roses hung low by their necks.

She looked at them, her lips thin, then looked back at him.

“I found out that you were why I got cupcakes for my birthday. And- And they were very good. So I wanted to say thank you.” And ask her out. But that seemed stupid now. He didn’t have a chance in hell.

“These are for me?” 

He nodded mutely, and she took them carefully in a hand. He hoped his sweat wasn’t still on them.

“Thank you.” She looked at them again, then raised her face. “So, if this is what you were working on, that means you’re free now, right?”

He nodded. His voice was caught in his throat.

She leaned in to smell the roses. He hoped they didn’t smell like acrylic paint. “You know, I’m famished. I could go for something to eat...”

“You wanna go-” His voice broke, and he cleared his throat and rubbed it in the hope that would work. “Go get something? To eat?”

She grinned, and he melted. “I’d love that, actually.” She offered her hand, then swallowed. “Uh...” She started to lower it, and he hastily took it in his own.

“I can walk you out?” he offered.

She grinned again. “I’d like that.”

He did his best to gather his things one-handed, pulled his bag onto his shoulder and grinned at her. “I’m sorry about the flowers,” he said impulsively. “I was going to give them to you this morning, but then I thought...”

She shrugged. “What matters is that you got around to it eventually. To be honest, I was considering leaving a note on your car if you didn’t do something soon.”

He grinned at her, and he didn’t need a mirror to know how dorky he looked. “I... Yeah.”

She pressed her lips together, but she couldn’t suppress her smile completely. She lead the way into the hall and waited as he turned out the light and locked his door. “You know, I think we hang around high schoolers too much? We’re being saccharine.”

“I guess we’ll have to be grown-ups with each other,” he mused, glancing at her to see what she thought. The hall was dark.

He thought he heard her laugh, but not in a mean way. “Steve Rogers, are you trying to flirt with me?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling bolder than he had all day.

He could see her face ever-so-faintly in the twilight from outside. “Well, don’t stop,” she said quietly. “I like it.”


	8. Political AU AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'd been working on a Sharon/Steve/Bucky political AU, [I Pledged Allegiance](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10030301/chapters/22354526), for months, and then election night happened. I was considering scrapping and doing this short instead, but then realized I still really wanted to finish I Pledged Allegiance.
> 
> But here's a glimpse at what could have been!

She knew he wasn’t asleep. When he slept, his muscles were utterly lax, but when he was awake, even perfectly still, he was always tense, too still. It was like sleeping on top of a soft statue.

“If you don’t go back to sleep,” she threatened, “I’m going to put water in your boots.” She kept her voice quiet so as not to disturb Barnes or the other protectors she knew would be nearby. Their shelter was makeshift - May didn’t think they’d reach someone willing and able to take them in for another day or two, and the tent walls would do little to cover any sounds they made.

Her hair moved as he huffed. If it were louder, it could have been a laugh. “Back in my day, we used tacks.”

She lifted her head, her hair gliding along his skin as she rose. “Back in your day, you didn’t have boots. Just straps of wood tied to your feet with vines.”

“Hmm.” He smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Whatever you say.”

She groaned. “God, you _are_ tired, if you’re saying that.” She dropped her head to his chest again. “So why are you awake?”

“Old age,” he teased.

She gave his chest a soft thump. “Keep it up, and my cold hands are going right to the back of your neck.”

Instead, he covered her hand on his chest to warm it. “I was just thinking about what could have been.”

The solemnity of his voice brought her own mood down. “I think about it, too, sometimes.”

“The policies we would have worked on. The Inauguration. The Inauguration Ball.” Even in the darkness, she could feel him smile down at her. “Walks through the Rose Garden. Living in the White House.”

“Termites,” she countered. “Walking around DC in January. Weeds. Constantly fighting Congress to get any policy through to legislation.” He grumbled and settled, and she held her ear against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. He was always the more idealistic of the two of them. “Choosing furniture for the Presidential bedroom. Eating dinner on the South Portico. Abe digging through the archives for whatever dusty documents he could find.” He stroked the back of her hand, and she sighed. “I’d have run after you. Eventually.”

“The first woman president?” Now he was the one teasing her.

She grinned in the darkness. “I wouldn’t mind being the second. The more, the merrier.”

His arm wrapped around her back. “So I would have been your first gentleman?”

“Mmm. The First Mister. No, the First Lad. And you’d be in charge of selecting china for the state dinners, meeting the prime ministers’ wives...”

“Arranging dinner with the legislators,” he chimed in softly. “Smiling softly and acting demure about politics so no one thinks I’m acting above my station.” A hint of bitterness entered his tone as he continued, “Championing some sort of cause, meeting with reporters for puff pieces...”

She lifted her head again and stroked his cheek. The new president had already made inroads on undermining the legislature to give his office more power. The news was a series of fluff stories about his family. “It isn’t over yet, Steve. We’re still here.”

“Being shuffled around by the resistance for our own safety,” he murmured. “Putting a target on the very people we protect.”

“You’re a symbol, Steve. The symbol of what we could have had. What we need to have.” Softly, she kissed his cheek. “You were one of the few people brave enough to speak out, even after he threatened to jail you.”

He groaned. “Don’t remind me. I still can’t believe so many people didn’t realize how awful he was even then. And I seem to recall you being threatened with prison time, too.”

“Like any prison could hold me,” she said with false cheer. “I’d seduce the guards. Go on a rampage.”

“Would you really?” His hand grew heavy on her back. “How would you seduce them?”

“What, you want a demonstration?”

Steve grinned, his chin pressing against the top of her head. “Maybe it would help me sleep...” His tone was mischievous. 

“Well, in that case...” She kissed his lips, relaxing as his strong hands pressed her against him.

He broke the kiss, and they breathed in silence. She didn’t rush him; she didn’t like to see him upset, and besides - a distracted Steve wasn’t great to sleep with.

She barely caught his whisper. “Is it worth it?”

She thought about the world before, her work as a senator, his as a governor, how much they had sacrificed, how much they had lost. She thought of her life before Steve, how she had focused so much more on trying to insure a perfect world rather than just a better one, how she had nearly broken herself time and time again trying to succeed and carried on because defeat wasn’t an option. He had given her strength to fight, to take the small victories. He had shown her that they couldn’t just fight the fights they could win. They had to fight the fights that needed fighting.

She smoothed his hair away from his face. “You give people hope. Would you take that away from them?”

“No.”

She kissed his temple. “Then yes, Steve. It’s worth it. Doing all that we can to help people, to make the world better, it’s worth it. That world we could have had? It’s still worth having. Which means it’s still worth fighting for.”

His thumb massaged the small of her back. “I’m lucky I’ve got you, you know.”

“I know.” She kissed his brow. “Now go to sleep. We’ve got a resistance to inspire tomorrow.”


	9. height difference

Sharon watched him over a plate of noodles, then looked down again at her food as the silence stretched.

Steve’s spoon clanged against the side of his bowl, and he sat back and watched her. “Okay,” he said at last. “What is it?”

“What’s what?”

He frowned at her, knowing she couldn’t be serious. She’d been... not moody, but certainly not happy, all night. She must have known he’d notice.

She heaved a deep sigh. “It doesn’t bother you?”

He looked at her. She never ceased to amaze him, but there were also times she could confuse the hell out of him.

She squirmed in her seat. “The height difference,” she said at last.

He gaped at her. “What height difference?”

“Exactly.” She set her fork down. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“What the- Why would that bother me?”

She took a moment to consider her words. “Look. Steve. I’ve dated before. And I know I’m... taller than a lot of people. I know that guys like shorter girls, and- Are you laughing?”

Well, he was shaking so hard trying not to laugh that the table was shaking, too. It was hard not to notice he was laughing when Sharon’s silverware was rattling against her dish.

“You really think I’m emasculated because I don’t have to bend down to kiss you?” he asked. “Sharon. _Sharon._ ” He grinned at her. “I can still remember when _everyone_ was a foot taller than me, and I still considered myself lucky if a girl so much as _looked_ at me. I never thought I was anything _but_ lucky to be with you. It never occurred to me that anyone would have a problem with your height.”

She poked at her spaghetti, not looking convinced. “All right.”

He watched her as he sipped his wine. As long as he’d known her, she was almost never insecure. The idea that she _would_ be insecure baffled him.

But he also knew not to push. They were both stubborn, and if he pushed, she would refuse to tell him what was really bothering her. It was best that he let her tell him when she was ready.

In the meantime, he had an idea, and he didn’t think it was an awful one.

He pushed his chair back. “Come here for a minute.” He went over to her and held out his hand, leading her over to the kitchen. Carefully grasping her hips, he lifted her onto the counter, then slouched down in front of her so that he only came up to her collarbone. “There,” he said decisively. “Height difference.”

She smiled down at him, and he grinned up at her, then grunted.

“If you wanna kiss me, though, you’re gonna have to come down here. I can’t reach you up there, and I don’t think you’d like it if I climbed you like a tree.”

She threw her head back to laugh and bumped her head against the cabinets. She cursed, ducked her head forward, and laughed as she rubbed the back of her head. After a moment, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Not much height difference on the floor.”

“Or in a bed,” he countered.

“Dinner’ll get cold.”

“Let it,” he said firmly.

She smiled down at him again, and he smiled back as he pulled her toward him and carried her toward the bedroom.


	10. steve has a chris evans moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brought to you by silly twitter conversation, Steve has a Chris Evans moment and throws everything off.

Sharon pressed the button for the elevator and turned back to Steve. Now that it was time for them to part, it was also time for awkward conversation. It was weird how they had known each other for so long, but she doubted either one of them had much of an idea what to do in this situation.

“So,” she began. “Thanks for walking me to my-”

Steve suddenly burst into nervous laughter, reaching out to rest his hand on her shoulder. His hand ended up on her breast.

She froze, staring at him as he continued to laugh.

Slowly, the laughter petered out, and he stared back at her.

She raised her eyebrows, her eyes falling to his hand.

He stared at his hand, aghast. “I, uh. I thought, uh- Did- Sam made this joke, and-”

“Sam isn’t here.”

“Ah. Uh. Yeah. He- he said it earlier, and I was just thinking of it, and- and I-” He stared at his hand, horrified, seemingly unable to move it away.

Sharon pressed her lips together. Was she supposed to move it away from him? Or just... Maybe this was what her life had become. Captain America thawed, Hydra resurfaced, Tony Stark with a flying metal suit, a woman who could do... whatever Maximoff did. With all the weird things in the world, maybe this was just what Sharon would have to put up with.

Not that it was bad. It was just... still happening. For an awkwardly long time. And it had been awkward to begin with.

Huh. Was that a spot on the ceiling? What an interesting spot on the ceiling...

The elevator dinged, and a man and two women walked out, giving them curious glances as Sharon and Steve stared back, frozen in confusion and indecision.

Sam rounded the corner just as the three disappeared, his mouth opening when he first saw them and going slack as he saw where Steve’s hand was. “Uh... Hi.”

“Hi,” Sharon told him as if this were a perfectly normal thing that happened every day.

Steve looked at Sam in horror and made sounds deep in his throat.

Sam pointed between them. “You two know they have hotel rooms here, right?”

Sharon looked to Steve again and saw the panic in his eyes. Finally, taking pity, she patted his hand - the one on her breast - and gently tugged it off. “Maybe later,” she promised him, which did nothing to lessen his panicked expression.

She pressed the elevator button again. “Here goes take two.”


	11. we need to talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon and Steve have to have a Talk, and with their lives the way they are, the only place to do it is the battlefield.

Steve raised his shield to take the force of the explosion and block the debris. He couldn’t deny that it felt good to have a shield again, even if it wasn’t the same one he’d left with Tony. This one had enough of a different heft that he still had to think about it sometimes, but it was already starting to feel as if it were part of him. Given the subject Sharon had just brought up, though, he nearly stopped thinking altogether and fought on automatic as her question echoed in his mind. “Did you love Aunt Peggy?”

From her tone, the hurt, almost panicked edge to her voice, he knew she wasn’t asking if he’d loved Peggy platonically.

“We really need to talk _now?_ ” he asked, watching as one of the aliens was hit by an arrow. She had accused him before of putting things off that made him feel uncomfortable, of using fights and missions to avoid anything in his personal life that put him on edge. And now she had brought Peggy up on the latest battlefield, when she knew he couldn’t run away.

Well, he _could,_ but he wouldn’t. She’d wanted to talk for a while, but between his missions with the Avengers and her intelligence-gathering missions, they’d had little chance to have any personal conversations.

“If not now, then when?” Sharon countered. She gave the alien she was fighting a solid kick back before shooting it in the head. “We’re always running around on missions and trying to catch up when we get together, but you _have_ to tell me, Steve. If you’re only with me because of Peggy-”

The world seemed to go quiet, the sounds of the battle fading away and Steve’s heart sank into his gut. So _that_ was why she was bringing up his relationship - or lack thereof - with Peggy. Part of him couldn’t believe that she would think it of him, but looking over the facts, he couldn’t blame her for coming to that conclusion. Most of the world assumed that he and Peggy had been together in some capacity; he should have realized that Sharon might think that, too.

He barely caught Tony saying over the comm, “-not having a romantic interlude, join me on channel 3,” and then he blinked as Sharon aimed her gun at him. Instinctively, he ducked, and the alien who had been approaching behind him dropped to the ground, a hole in its head.

“I had that one,” he said. He slung his shield, knocking over several aliens before catching it again. “I didn’t even know you were related to her when I- when I asked you out. The first time.” Had flirted with her like a moron in their hallway, more like. He shook his head.

“You only kissed me after you found out,” she said. “She told me she knew you. Told me stories about you. Told me that the radio show made things up because people liked the idea of romance. I didn’t think- If I’d known you two were so close, I would never have-”

“I _do_ love her,” Steve said. Across the way, Sharon stopped, faltered. He threw his shield at the alien she didn’t appear to see.

She watched the shield fly past her and spun, shooting three aliens as the one he’d hit fell. She turned back to him as he caught the shield. “I had that one.”

He nodded in acknowledgement. “About Peggy - part of me will always love her. But I loved her the way I think she came to love me. I wouldn’t be who I was if not for her.” Was he fucking this up? He felt like he was saying everything wrong, especially given how Sharon’s hands were going still as she reloaded. He didn’t worry that she couldn’t defend herself, though - already she saw a threat, and in a flash the gun was loaded, aimed, and firing. “I felt like she was the first person who saw me for me. The skinny kid from Brooklyn who wanted to do some good, and I think she liked that I saw her as capable and skilled and a brawler. He threw the shield to cover her back and was aware that she was shooting at aliens behind him to cover his. “She believed in me, and I believe in her.”

“And you didn’t think you could tell me?”

He caught the shield, ran a gloved finger along the edge as he considered. And no, he couldn’t dull the edge or lie here; it would only make things worse. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

She turned away and shot some aliens running up behind Clint.

Clint cupped his hands to his mouth. “I had that one!”

Sharon gave him a one-fingered salute in response.

Steve, not knowing what else to say, turned and concentrated on the fight at hand.

“I’m not Peggy, Steve.”

He stopped again. Why, _why_ did they have to have this conversation _now?_ The next time he was tempted to stick his head in the sand, he was going to remember this.

“I know. And I’m not who I was then. Peggy wasn’t the same person when I came out of the ice - I don’t think she stayed the same after the war. It’s- I’m- I’m _different,_ Sharon. The me I am now wasn’t the me of the war. Yes, I loved her. She was the first person to believe in me, to believe I could be something more. But I was too afraid to ask her out until too late. I was-” He ran a hand over his face. “I love you, Sharon.”

If her sour expression was any indication, she didn’t believe him.

He strode over to her. “You’re my home.”

That got her. She stared at him and stopped moving entirely.

“Peggy helped make me the person I am. I’ll always love her, I’ll always be indebted to her. But the way I feel about her isn’t what I feel for you. You’ve seen my stubbornness when it couldn’t be considered a good thing. You’ve seen me when I was depressed and petty and- and an ass. And you’ve called me out on it and still stuck around. You’ve been with me through thick and thin, and you’re the person I want to come home to.”

His shield hit two aliens behind her, and she still didn’t move. She kept staring at him and murmured a barely-audible, “Had that one...”

“Peggy found a home, and I’m happy for her. She found someone who could grow with her in ways I couldn’t. Who could be the person she needed.” He stopped in front of her. “I- I’d like to be the sort of person you could need. The sort of person you could grow with. My home. If- If you’re good with that.” Maybe, he thought, this had all been a mistake. Maybe he should have accepted Tony’s earlier offers, or just turned himself in. He could feel his face burning, his heart aching. If she didn’t say yes... if she didn’t believe him...

And then her lips were on his, just as they had been for their first kiss, only this time, there was a comfort and a familiarity to it. A softness to it, a peace. He wrapped his arms around her, his shield at her back.

When they pulled apart, he grinned to himself. “I didn’t fuck us up?”

“No,” she said, answering his grin with one of her own. “No, not at all.”

Sam chose that moment to fly overhead, mowing down some of the aliens who had drawn closer while Steve and Sharon were distracted. “You two want to get your heads in the game, or you want to get a room?”

“Both,” Sharon muttered, quiet enough that only Steve could hear. “Though the room might have to wait.”

Steve gave Sam a light-hearted salute and pulled away from Sharon. He wasn’t unhappy to find her hand still in his. “On 3, right?”

Sam nodded and flew off.

“For what it’s worth,” Sharon said as he switched channels, “you’re my home, too.”

Steve grinned at her and spoke over the comm. “Guys. Let’s try and wrap this up. Some of us have plans tonight."


	12. IOU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharon just wanted to treat herself, damn it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to have the next chapter of Marvel's Thirteen edited and published today, but life and then more life got in the way. In the meantime, here's this!

The apartment was quiet. Steve was off somewhere dealing with vampires (because on Friday the 13th, of course he was), and Sharon had finally managed to crush a zombie outbreak in Kansas (because on Friday the 13th, of course she had). And now it was time to treat herself.

Sharon wasn’t in the habit of treating herself. When she felt like taking a break, she was normally happy to drop into the couch with a cold beer.

But zombies had topped off a tough week, and she deserved a treat, damn it.

Despite the apartment’s quiet, she called out for Steve before searching the apartment. He hadn’t snuck back in. He hadn’t crawled into bed for a nap. He hadn’t steamed up the bathroom. He hadn’t come home yet.

And that meant Sharon didn’t have to share.

Smirking to herself, she dragged a chair over to the fridge. Climbing up, she rummaged for several minutes, carefully pulling out unused, forgotten pots and Dutch ovens and trays. She set them aside so the dust pattern was undisturbed.

There, in the back, was the pan that held her goal. Instinctively, she froze before she touched it, her head turning toward the door as she strained for any sounds of Steve’s arrival.

Hearing nothing, she carefully pulled out the pan to reveal the pack of Oreos, still finally wrapped in its pristine, plastic packaging.

Smiling to herself, she touched her fingers to the pack’s sides to lift it out of the pan.

It came easily.

Too easily.

Her smile disappeared. The packaging was light. As if the pack of Oreos was empty.

Knowing it had been full when she’d bought it and carefully hidden it away, Sharon stilled her nerves. As carefully as if she were diffusing a bomb, she opened the packaging. Again, it opened far too easily.

Inside, there was a note.

“IOU Oreos. - Love, Steve.”

She glared at the note. Oh, he owed her, all right.

“Son of a bitch.”


End file.
